Life in a Nutshell

I am a storyteller. I love to hear a good story, and even more, I love to tell a good story. Looking back on the last few years, it feels like more and more the good stories have stopped flowing. I'm not sure if this is a part of growing older, and possibly being more responsible, or if I have simply run out of good stories, but I'm in a dry spell. So lately, I have taken to making up stories as my life is going on. Take tonight. I work at a chain restaurant that just so happens to deliver pizza. Currently you can see an ad for our $10 dollar deal on just about every channel or website you can find. This has led to what I can only describe as a frenzy for what I will deem "Crappy, oily, cheap" pizza. It has led to many a stressful night dealing with customer complaints, lack of tips, and general negativity in my workplace, and has led many of my coworkers to seek other employment. I had at least four tell me tonight how they had leads on other jobs. I couldn't help but imagine myself as an undercover consultant hired by the company to improve performance. I would go home tonight, change my clothes, shower, and in the morning wake up to a freshly pressed linen collared shirt, preferably with french cuffs, and maybe a stripe pattern, and grab my morning smoothie and jump into my midsize midclass luxury sedan. (Think Nissan Maxima or similar...) I would fire up the beast, as the latest mix between jock rock and nontrendy pop music blared from my satellite radio, and cruise on down to the Las Vegas company headquarters. Armed with cell phone pics and notes taken while navigating the mean streets of St. George, I would dissect live in front of a conference table of executive looking men and women exactly where things were failing. Calling my coworkers by codes like "Subject A" and "Manager X", I would lay out entirely the plan that I had pieced together over the last few months, adding the dramatic pauses and vocal inflections to prove my points. "THESE AREN"T JUST PIZZAS WE ARE SELLING HERE!!! dot dot dot.....then in a hushed tone...these are happier lives." The room would burst to applause and then I would get the dubious wink and handshake from the company head, as if to say, Atta Boy, Bryan, this is gold! Everyone would leave, and I would stare across the empty room much like Alexander probably did a battlefield, victorious and briefly satisfied by today's accomplishment. But, in reality, I delivered nine orders, had a rich old man ask for a free pizza, and tried to pull one of the waiters through the drive thru window in a fake wrestling match/fight while Creedence was blaring from my car radio. And I made a few bucks tonight in tips. I mean, it's not the good life by any means, but hey, it has its' perks.

I should probably be in bed right now, but I had some thoughts that I really wanted to share and hopefully get some feedback on. I have a lot of pet peeves in life, things that just rub me wrong for whatever reason, but one of the bigger pet peeves I have is in church when RMs share "The Mission Story." I wouldn't say that the story is necessarily bad, or I dislike it, but the few guys who share it to grab attention as to how great a missionary they were or how righteous they are have ruined it for me for good. I had an unbelievable two years serving in Ukraine, and I would never, EVER, trade that experience for anything, but at the same time, I have realized that my mission was different from so many others. I was a first counselor in a small branch in Nikolayev, Ukraine, for nine months. There were times when the only priesthood holders at sacrament meeting were the missionaries and when we had to share impromtu talks for about half an hour because whatever member that was supposed to speak didn't show up, or we simply didn't have anyone left to speak. These oddities or rarities led me to learn a great deal about HOW the church is run, proper order and procedure, and in turn I think has ruined so much of Mormon society for me. I was reading a blog tonight where the female writer was perturbed that the Home Teachers had not asked her to assign someone to pray. I can relate to being the unnoticed one in life, despite being abnormally large in size for all my life, people, and more notably girls, have ignored me all my life, but I disagree with her on this instance. Men were set as the head of the household for a reason, and women were given to them to assist in the decision-making process. It has nothing to do with holding women back or anti-feminism, but it has to do with following the natural order God has set forth. I'm not good at keeping commandments, but that is more because I lack discipline as opposed to me being defiant to commandments. I do, however, understand that God has an order, and upsetting that order leads to confusion and disarray. Any of the recent Gay marriage debates or the rise in divorce rates are strong indicators of this, in my opinion. It is this lack of understanding of how the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints works that I have a hard time overlooking. So many people make commentary or negative remarks about a certain principle or technique, and really miss what the point of what we are doing is, and that is learning. God doesn't need everything to be perfect, he needs us to learn, and part of learning includes making mistakes, but also knowing what the proper response or procedure is in a given situation. I have a major pride issue, i.e. I'm overly prideful, and I have seen myself over and over make these same sorts of assumptions. Realization of this has caused me some pain, but in turn, has helped me to better understand that everything has a reason and just because we don't know it doesn't make it wrong. Its late, so I'm not sure that makes sense, but I at least know what I am trying to say.

As long as I am ranting, another thing that bothers me is how so many people make church into their social life. Religion at its core was developed to provide people with support, but I think too many people abuse it as their primary means and support. I know not everyone is the social butterfly that I am, but it may surprise some people to learn that being social and open and conversational is actually hard for me to do, and that at my very core I am a shy person. I am seriously grateful for what I have been given in life because of my membership in the church, but I see these things happening, and it makes me sad because I feel like the true spirit of the gospel is being lost here. It shouldn't be something hard to fix, either. I'm not saying I'm the one to fix it, but I won't be the guy that pipes up in Elder's quorum to say, "I remember back on my mission..."

If I were to chart my time in the shape of a pie, or in other words, a pie chart, there would probably be two slices that everyone would want, and then the "donate to charity" sized remainders to what I do. The two big pieces would be work and internet, and I think with me going back to school this semester there will soon be a third piece. I usually spend most of my internet time reading other blogs, reading about sports, reading draft charts and short stories, and facebook. I can't lie about the facebook thing because anyone with half a brain can tell that, but I actually do spend a lot of time reading, because reading is what inspires me to write this, but the more that I read, the more I've started realizing how hard it is to find entertaining things to write about and how hard it is to stay motivated and fresh. I've given this a lot of thought lately due to my recent urge to actually develop either one of my movie ideas or one of my reality shows. It seems that almost everyone has a good idea for a reality show, I know I've claimed several, but instead of just thinking, yeah that would make a great show, I've started asking more critical questions. Why would people want to watch this? Is it duplicatable? How much could the production company make off of product placement? How do you keep it interesting? What about this show is unique and would convince someone to give you the money to produce it? This has led to a refinement of a lot of my ideas, mostly to the point that I end up throwing them away, which I'm not super depressed about, because if they really were that good, I'd be putting them to use. I feel like I have developed the skills lately that would make me good at this kind of thing, but at the same time, I'm not the kind of person who could do it alone, and typically my wingman at some point would be Jay, but he is in Salt Lake and our schedules rarely allow for us to talk and plan things, so for now I'll go it alone. I have no idea how you go about something like this, but I plan on spending a fair amount of time in it, because, and this is my segway to my second point for this little rant, I am losing the fire at work. I have a pretty great job for college, decent enough money, it isn't difficult by any means, flexible hours, but I'm still poor and it is BORING, and holding my attention to one task that holds zero interest REALLY sucks for me. Almost to the point that I think I have adult ADD.

(I looked up the symptoms online, and I have a lot of them, i.e. being forgetful, easily distracted, being late, which EVERYONE knows I have a huge problem with, anyway...)

In addition, we have a new manager, and like every new manager, this one is out to prove that he/she can change all the bad habits at the store and make things better, because the last three managers just didn't have the tools that he/she does, etc, which basically leads to firing half the staff and trying to tell all the current employees how to do their job. This bugs me to no end, because I've seen this happen three times now, and the outcome is almost always the same, manager gets burned out and the employees slack again. The whole process is getting frustrating. So I came home tonight to look at jobs, and honestly, it was bleak. I mean, really bleak. Like less than a hundred jobs TOTAL. That is pretty scary. I'm chalking some of that up to the fact that the new year just started, and some of it to the fact that a good portion of the jobs that might be open aren't listed in the places that I looked for them, but that may be a little hopeful. I want to say that I feel the same enthusiasm that everyone else does, that 2010 will be better, and I think that a lot of it will be for me because of my changes that I've made since last year, but there is still so much beyond my control that I'm unsure about. I guess in times of doubt you just need to buckle down and do what you can, and hope that things turn out for the best, because they almost inevitably do.

I think one of my biggest assets in this blog, and possibly in life, also tends to be one of my biggest faults. Most of the time when I write things down in the blog, it stems from some emotional moment I've had or something that pushes me, or motivates me to put my thoughts online. The more I thought about this, the more I started realizing that emotion drives so much of what I do. Common sense and level-headed decision making are almost the opposite of what I find to be interesting in my life, but recently I've begun to notice the beauty of calculation and of obedience and self control, again. My independence and need for freedom drove me in a different direction than what I think I really wanted to go in, because I felt like I was being forced to do things. In reality, and I think this fact has been played to death for all of us, it is mastery of self-control and the ability to adapt quickly to unexpected situations or, if you are lucky enough, to be over-prepared, that really lead people to successful lives and happiness. I guess if I were to make a new years resolution, that would be it. That I would continually strive for the self-control now that will unlock opportunities and blessings in the future, and hope that as it will be difficult for the first few months, that I can find the strength to continue and see some early reward for making the sacrifices now that I need to in order to succeed. That, and get my ass to the gym. I miss my muscles.

Too Long to be Without...

It has been too long since I've posted something here, but I wanted to get a few thoughts that I had tonight down, just because I really liked them and wanted to share or maybe even hear what everyone else has to say, if anyone reads this anymore.

-I'm the last one to leave the Thunderdome before Christmas. For a while I thought it was going to be for good, but it looks like we'll at least get to finish out the semester here, which is good. It feels like home, and when everyone is gone, I keep thinking that the house is haunted, but I'm realizing now that I'm so conditioned to doors slamming and music blaring and some kind of story or commotion going on that it is more my mind playing tricks on me in anticipation of people being home. For an only child, you would think I would be used to being on my own, but I still have a hard time sleeping knowing that I'm the only one here. Guess I've assured myself of having a relatively large family.

-I had a conversation with my friend the other night and realized something about myself. I get extremely terse and angry with people who judge. I also get upset with people simply commenting or noticing the things that are wrong or that I am doing wrong or people in general are doing wrong. I guess shortly, I hate people noticing the negative and the bad in my own life and with others. I think I usually interpret that as cockiness or arrogance on the part of the offending party, because of my own shortcomings and dislike for the feelings I've felt from people like that in the past. I've made plenty of mistakes in my life that others have not, not because I'm a bad person or I like bad things per se, but because I am curious and I always want to see what something feels like or how to do it, and that is at least one reason that I tend to get into trouble. For those of you who have never had to deal with the pain of making mistakes or paying the price for mistakes made down the road, have never had to feel the hurt and disappointment and pain, have never had to fight your way back to the good road, when it seems like you've been on the bad one, and haven't felt away from the things that you once had but lost, I just ask for your patience. Some of us aren't built to handle things the way you are. We struggle, learn, fall, struggle some more, and try to get ahead but it just doesn't always turn out to be rainbows and gumdrops and puppy dog kisses every day. That doesn't mean we don't have rich, fulfilling moments, or dreams and happy lives, just that we do things differently. I hope we can all be just a little more understanding, especially myself.

-I've been thinking about definitions a lot lately, and when I get some more time, I want to really put my thoughts to paper. My biggest hope and desire with what I write here is that people will read and be inspired, or led, to thoughts that they can in turn share with me and others. I firmly stand by the idea that Creativity begets creativity, and we can all use some of that in our lives.

-Working at Pizza Hut is both a blessing and a curse. I feel like the work I do is so menial and inappropriate for capitalizing on my strengths, but at the same time, I make good money for a part-time college gig, and I have a lot of time to be creative and think up random things to do at work to make it more fun and also continue to think up new ideas for my outside life. Creativity is my new favorite theme in my life right now, so much so that I am really looking hard into what I want my career forays to be in. You would think that at 27 I would have this figured out by now, and I thought I had, but now I don't know.

-If I had a word of the day calendar, the big ones this week/month would be balderdash, haberdashery, shenanigans and tomfoolery, kibosh, hijinks, and there was one more that I heard today that I can't remember. Foo. Oh well. Until next time I guess.

So anyone who knows or talks to me on a semi recent basis knows that I chose to live in St George this summer and try and knock out some school so that I can get it done more quickly. While in the beginning, I thought this was a great idea, it has turned out to be much more difficult than I imagined, but, as I see now, much more necessary. Which has led me to blog more than I ever have before, which I actually think is huge. My love of writing has never betrayed me, but I certainly have not shown it the time or attention that it deserves, so maybe this "Summer Of One" will have some benefit to it. As always, I'm just posting thoughts, sorry, but until I start taking a class on how to blog more effectively, it is what it is.


My iPod must be possessed, lately it has been playing a few songs that just make me want to go someplace big and energetic, like Vegas, so I think I might start a Vegas mix here tonight. Not that I really want to go, because Vegas is really overpriced and kind of less fun now that I am older and have to pay for everything myself, but I just like the idea of having that go-to mix for a good night. Yes I am a music geek. Feel free to judge me all you like.

I think that right now I would love to write for a show like Entourage, one where I could put together these semi-ridiculous ideas that only super rich and powerful people can really get done. Not that I don't believe that they might happen, but I just have the feeling that they wouldn't be as satisfying as I might hope they are. On-screen everything looks better anyways.

I have to chime in on the Jazz today. I think Memo, Booz, and Korver opting-in will be fine. I love Millsap as much as anyone else, so I hope he stays, but if we lose him, it's not the end of the world. Having $27 million dollars in expiring contracts leaves the Jazz a lot of flexibility at the trade deadline for next season, and the offseason that EVERYONE is preparing for, 2010. Plus, we still get the chance to see how the team might do healthy, and if they struggle, or we need an extra piece later in the season, we have the flexibility to do so. I think having open options is a nice thing to have right now. If you wanted to connect this to our current situation with the economy, you could say having options is good for everyone because there are more opportunities to achieve your goals. So far, despite being kind of melodramatic, the off-season for the Jazz has been effective I think. Not really a whole lot out there really makes us a better team unless it is through some trades.

I'm feeling much older these days. 26 is still young, technically, but I've definitely been bitten by the "environment" bug that is Utah. I know I've taken a random winding path in my life, but it has been the right one for me to get to where I need to be, and to learn the lessons that I need to, so it can be hard for me to hate it. Yet, I get the feeling that my young days of play are ending. I notice a lot of things ending that used to be a big deal to me, a lot of transition with those around me, and a lot changes within as well. I think the thing that scares me the most I guess is facing all this without my closest friends there with me from day to day. I never realized how much I relied on them for pretty much anything, and now that I am kind of on my own in almost every respect, the world seems much bigger and more lonely, and harder to conquer. I guess I just assumed that there were great friends like mine all over, but that might have been a great exaggeration.

I need help learning more about computers. Maybe taking a class would be a good idea, but I just feel less than prepared than I should be.

I'm on a hunt for good things to read. If you have any, just comment below this post. I love reading and I will give just about anything a chance.

The Roundup

It's about time that I posted something new here, and since I've decided writing exclusively about sports is probably a waste of time when I have lots of ideas to write about in general, I'm just going to free flow this bad boy for a bit. Starting with a list;


Things I Don't Get:
-Why everyone thinks the Jazz had a bad draft. My poor friends have lost YEARS of their lives because A, Brevin Knight can't hit a jumper, which I can't do either Brevin, so no hard feelings, and because Jason Hart wasn't exactly the right fit, to be polite. Please, Let Dylan MacLeod live to see 40. Just accept it. The only other player who could have made a real difference in this draft was Blake Griffin, or maybe Stephen Curry.
-Why girls take so many pictures of their shoes. Really? You love feet that much?
-School. I just suck at it. Period.
-Why more pop stars don't try to fake their deaths. This may be totally inappropriate, but Michael Jackson is cleaning up in sales right now. Maybe it's my cold heart, I don't know.
-Why people in Asia are following my twitter...
-What happened to RocknRolla. Was I the only one who saw this movie? Was it not great? Did someone slip a happy pill in my coke before the show and I just dreamt it all? Go rent it right now, please, I need the sequel.
-Girls. I'm sorry, I just don't see it ever happening.
-Why country music just feels so good. Even Hootie had to switch. I love you Darius Rucker....


I've started a new job recently. I deliver pizzas for Pizza Hut. It's really fulfilling. Kids on the street love me, I'm known worldwide as "The Pizza Guy" or "Pizza Dude" and I feel like Fall Out Boy at a rock concert whenever I show up to a party, because honestly, when you're drunk and hungry, who doesn't love to see some pizza? Alas, that does not always leave me fully satisfied as having really pushed my limits, and having GPS on my phone has taken the fun out of the game I used to play called, Find The Street. SO, in order to combat the impending boredom and soon to be hatred of doing dishes when there are no deliveries, I've invented some World's Strongest Pizza Guy style events that I try to compete daily in so that I stay motivated. They are....

-Garbage Bag underhand carry and toss: Carry as many full trash bags as possible to the dumpster in as short a time as possible, then proceed to toss them OVER the fence and land them in the LEFT dumpster from a distance of fifteen feet. Bonus points if you can throw a box and a bag, points deducted for dropping anything else in your hand or for being French. Unless it was that really hot blonde girl who sat next to me on my way to Ukraine. She wins at everything.

-Hand Toss Carry: Stack as many COMPLETELY PREPPED pans of hand tossed pizza dough on top of one another, and carry them from prep table to the freezer, where they are stored overnight. Included in this challenge is the task of opening the door while NOT setting down the pans, and placing all pans DIRECTLY on the racks in the freezer. Two divisions, medium and large. My record is thirteen for each, seeing as how that is the number that will fit on the rack. I'm still working on a technique that will slide a larger stack onto the racks.

-Sink Lift- How long can you hold a sink up while someone else cleans underneath it? If you saw my dishwashing station, this would make much more sense, I promise.

-Salad Cart Push (cancelled): Designed to see how fast you can push the salad cart from the freezer to the salad bar station with all loose condiments remaining on the cart. Cancelled after I almost killed a retired couple and covered a five year old in ranch dressing. Okay, not really, but I don't really want to try it when customers are present and get fired. I need my job. Really. Stop Laughing. IT'S A TOUGH ECONOMY!!!




I'm trying to become more addicted to twitter, not because I really want people to see what I am doing, I could care less, but I like using it as kind of a notepad. I tried this on my mission to Ukraine about a million times, but pens, pads of paper and trying to get all that out while doing a plethora of other things, along with not sitting on my notepad and just beating it to death in my pockets is pretty cumbersome, so I'm seriously hoping this twitter thing pays off for me. As if I didn't text enough already.

I think I could probably write more here, but this is a good start for me. I really could go off for about an hour on more sports topics, but I think better to leave that for another day.